Technical Note SB48: Briquettes

Making briquettes from biomass is a high efficient way to save your energy bill as well as to dispose of biomass waste.  As a kind of renewable energy, the biomass briquettes, such as wood briquettes, saw dust briquettes or charcoal briquettes, made by briquetting machine, is widely used both in industry and civil scale for heating as a substitute of conventional fossil fuel - coal in particular.  

Biomass briquettes can be made from wood, sawdust, crop straw, grass, civil waste and animal waste.

A briquette is manufactured by a briquetting machine, also known as briquette maker or briquette press.

How does a biomass briquetting machine work?  Take making wood briquettes for example, under circumstance of high pressure and temperature, the lignin, which is a kind of polymer in the wood, originally working as a support of wood cell wall, will turn to a sort of plastic matter that bind the wood fibres together.  That is also why any glue, or binder namely is not necessary in briquetting process, and it is also the reason why the outside of a wood briquette is smooth and shinning.